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Understand Prehistory Era Competencies UNDERSTAND PREHISTORY ERA COMPETENCIES: Students have: 1. Understanding about prehistoric science. 2. Understanding how archeologist work? 3. Understanding how analysis of spatial, temporal, and ethnographic. What Is Prehistory? Prehistory, time before written records appeared, which occurred about 3000 BC. Prehistory includes the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. Paul Tournal originally coined the term pré- historique in describing the finds he had made in the caves of southern France. It came into use in france in the 1830s to describe the time before writing, and the word "prehistoric" was introduced into English by Daniel Wilson in 1851. The Urgencies of Prehistory Societies without written records preserved their history through stories and myths passed orally from one generation to another. This remembered narrative disappeared when a society died out. The nature and events of prehistory can be partially reconstructed through archaeology, which examines the material evidence left behind by the peoples of the past: their dwellings, tools, and everyday materials, as well as their great monuments and works of art. How Prehistory are? For example, an archaeological excavation of a prehistoric site may provide evidence indicates that the site was the tomb of a male person (by examination of the skeleton) and that he was of great importance (because of the presence of rich grave goods). However, certain information, such as his language, his thoughts, and his conversations, cannot be known. For this reason, the study of prehistory tends to concentrate on broad issues, such as the evolution of peoples and cultures, and the development of technology and ideas as indicated by the artifacts left. Archeology Archaeology, the scientific study of past human culture and behavior, from the origins of humans to the present. Archaeology studies past human behavior through the examination of material remains of previous human societies. These remains include the fossils (preserved bones) of humans, food remains, the ruins of buildings, and human artifacts—items such as tools, pottery, and jewelry. From their studies, archaeologists attempt to reconstruct past ways of life. Archaeology is an important field of anthropology, which is the broad study of human culture and biology. Archaeologists concentrate their studies on past societies and changes in those societies over extremely long periods of time. Prehistoric archaeology is practiced by archaeologists known as prehistorians and deals with ancient cultures that did not have writing of any kind. Archaeologists refer to the vast store of information about the human past as the archaeological record. The archaeological record encompasses every area of the world that has ever been occupied by humans, as well as all of the material remains contained in those areas. Archaeologists study the archaeological record through field surveys and excavations and through the laboratory study of collected materials. PREHISTORY? Natural sciences view that the human as part of mammals. The different between human and mammals is culture. Human can be a creator in which create tools for life. Human culture can be viewed form two factors: materials (things produced by human) and immaterial (human minds and psychological aspect of human life). Indonesian prehistory include the age of the earlier times to Vth (the East Kalimantan inscription). Ilmu Prasejarah: ilmu yang mempelajari manusia serta peradabannya sejak zaman permulaan sampai zaman sejarah, dikenalnya tulisan (R. Soekmono, 1973: 21). Perkembangan • Prakemerdekaan: ahli dari luar negeri (Belanda) seperti: E Dubois, V Koenigswald, Van Heekeren, dan lain-lain. Mereka banyak melakukan penelitian untuk merekonstuksi prasejarah di Indonesia. • Zaman kemerdekaan: berkembangnya perguruan tinggi menyebabkan banyak arkeolog dari Indonesia bermunculan. Tokoh Palaeontologi Indonesian: Teuku Yacoeb (UGM). Namun ada juga ahli luar negeri yang meneliti prasejarah Indonesia: P Bellwood. Archaeologists have divided the Stone Age into different stages, each characterized by different types of tools or tool-manufacturing techniques. The stages also imply broad time frames and are perceived as stages of human cultural development. The most widely used designations for the successive stages are Paleolithic (Old Stone Age), Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age), and Neolithic (New Stone Age). Definition (1) . British naturalist Sir John Lubbock in 1865 defined the Paleolithic stage as the period in which stone tools were chipped or flaked. He defined the Neolithic as the stage in which ground and polished stone axes became prevalent. These two stages also were associated with different economic and subsistence strategies: Paleolithic peoples were hunter-gatherers while Neolithic peoples were farmers. The Mesolithic (also known as the Epipaleolithic) extends from the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago, until the period when farming became central to a peoples’ livelihood, which occurred at different times around the world. The term Mesolithic is generally applied to the period of post-Pleistocene hunting and gathering in Europe and, sometimes, parts of Africa and Asia. ECOFACT a biofact (or ecofact) is an object, found at an archaeolo- gical site and carrying archaeological significance, but previously unhanded by humans. A common type of biofact is a plant seed. A seed can be linked to the species of plant that produced it; if large numbers of seeds of an edible species are found at a site, it may be inferred that that species was being grown for food there. Another type of biofact is an (uncarved) wooden roof beam. Dendrochronological analysis of some wood samples can help to determine the date during which a site was occupied. Yet another example of a biofact is a bone. ECOFACT EXAMPLES ARTIFACT An artefact (from Latin arte factum) or artifact is any object made or modified by a human. "Artifact" is the usual spelling in the US and Canada, "artefact" in the UK, Europe and Australasia. The term is most commonly used, an artefact is an object recovered by some archaeological endeavor, which may have a cultural interest. Examples include stone tools such as projectile points, pottery vessels, metal objects such as guns, and items of personal adornment such as buttons, jewellery and clothing. FEATURE Feature in archaeology and especially excavation has several different but allied meanings. A feature is a collection of one or more contexts representing some human non-portable activity that generally has a vertical characteristic to it in relation to site stratigraphy. Examples of features are pits, walls, and ditches. General horizontal elements in the stratigraphic sequence, such as layers, dumps, or surfaces are not referred to as features. Examples of surfaces include yards, roads, and floors. Features tend to have an intrusive characteristic or associated cuts. This is not definitive as surfaces can be referred to as features of a building and free standing structures with no construction cut can still be features. Middens (dump deposits) are also referred to as features due to their discrete boundaries. This is seen in comparison to leveling dumps, which stretch out over a substantial portion of a site. The concept of a feature is, to a certain degree, fuzzy, as it will change depending on the scale of excavation. FEATURES FOSSILS Fossils (from Latin fossus, literally "having been dug up") are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous (fossil-containing) rock formations and sedimentary layers (strata) is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils across geological time, how they were formed, and the evolutionary relationships between taxa (phylogeny) are some of the most important functions of the science of paleontology. Such a preserved specimen is called a "fossil" if it is older than some minimum age, most often the arbitrary date of 10,000 years ago.[1] FOSSILS EXAMPLES Analysis: Temporal, Spatial DATING: FOR TEMPORAL ANALYSIS “How old is it?” While archaeologists seem to answer this question with ease, the answer is based on difficult science. Accurately dating an archaeological site requires the application of two distinct methods of dating: relative and absolute. Relative dating establishes the date of archaeological finds in relation to one another. Absolute dating is the often more difficult task of determining the year in which an artifact, remain, or geological layer was deposited. Stratigraphy Archaeologists determine the age of artifacts and other remains in relation to each other and to the present through a technique called stratigraphy. This illustration depicts a cross-section into the ground in which many layers of soil, rock, and other materials can be seen. In most cases, objects buried in lower layers, such as the stonework, are older than those in higher layers, such as the skull. Relative dating relies on the principle of superposition. This principle states that deeper layers in a stratified sequence of naturally or humanly deposited earth are older than shallower layers. In other words, the uppermost layer is the most recent, and each deeper layer is somewhat older. Relative chronologies come from two sources: (1) careful stratigraphic excavation in the field, noting the precise location of every artifact and remain within layers of earth;
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